


Art Restoration

by artistocrazy



Series: Aushun Week 2020 [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Death, F/M, Immortality, Immortals and their strange relationship with death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentioned France (Hetalia), Mentioned North Italy (Hetalia), Mentioned Prussia (Hetalia), Mentioned Spain (Hetalia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24637306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artistocrazy/pseuds/artistocrazy
Summary: Written for Aushun Week 2020.Prompt: Immortality, maybe also Comfort.It’s the aftermath of the first battle in the War of Austrian Succession. Erzsébet is tasked with retrieving Roderich’s body. At least, that’s what she thought before she found him barely alive.Cue awkward sexual tension in a tiny carriage while you’re trying to tend to your crush’s wounds. Also, please consider death in battle for a seemingly immortal being isn’t really the absolute worst thing ever.
Relationships: Austria/Hungary (Hetalia)
Series: Aushun Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790344
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Art Restoration

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: if you already have awkward feelings about death or suffer from suicidal ideation, consider skipping this read and just picture the cozy image of Erzsébet tending to Roderich’s wounds when she really doesn’t have to.

Erzsébet wasn’t sure, if he would pass once they had gotten into the carriage returning to Vienna. Roderich had certainly suffered quite a bit of damage by the time she found him. The Austrian would probably be a little indebted to Antonio for keeping the wandering hands of a certain Frenchman off of him. He would, that is, if the Austrian were big enough of a person to admit to being indebted to anyone. 

Regardless, once the carriage settled into a steady pace, the Hungarian got back to work - tucking that silly German bible between his arm and the bandages on his side for more pressure while sterilizing and threading the needle for his sutures. While letting it sit in the alcohol for a moment, Erzsébet tried to wipe away the blood and dirt covering his face, hoping to figure out where else she’d need to stitch. At the very least, she wanted to know if there was any specific swelling that disrupted his breathing. It seemed too faint. Without a second thought, she checked for a pulse in his neck. Merely as a curiosity of whether or not to keep working.

Adjusting her finger placement, Erzsébet contemplated if she might need to check in other places. If she’d have to remove his gloves. Try to roll up his sleeves. Remove his white coat. She’d have to unbutton the top half of the uniform anyway, to be sure if the blood stains in his side were his own or someone else’s, as nervous as she was to have to check for a heartbeat there. 

Really, it wouldn’t have mattered if he died on the way back. He’d just revive within the day anyway. She didn’t have to tend to the wounds, even. If he died, he’d start mostly fresh, save some of the resulting consequence of his defeat. If he had a slight limp or aches for a few days, what would it matter?

But she couldn’t help but feel somewhere deep down it just looked wrong. It wasn't as if he were unrecognizable. It just felt wrong to see a swollen, black eye hiding one of his serenely blue ones. It felt wrong to question if his bottom lip was also busted, or if it normally looked that fleshy. His face, his limbs, his hair fallen every which way. There was so much of him that seemed too delicate for warfare or fighting. Too fragile to be roughed up. (She felt her stomach drop at the thought of it) Too pretty.

Some of her anxiety quelled upon feeling something rhythmic pulse back against the side of her finger. He was still alive, and despite his stillness and the absence of shock, he probably wasn’t too happy about it.

Despite herself, despite her understanding of how either of them worked, she tended to the wounds anyway. With gentle touches, soft hands. It felt more like repairing one of Feli’s little playthings than a soldier, as strange as the situation was. Despite the mess, despite the destruction she was used to, tending to those wounds felt a little like restoring something. A doll? A sculpture? A stained glass window? Something that was supposed to be beautiful. Something valuable. Something precious.

Without thinking too deeply about it, Erzsébet gently brushed away some of the hair that kept falling into his face with their jostling ride on the gravelly path. She felt herself linger there too long between the next bump in the road, pondering opening the coat at all and unsure of how he would react if he were to wake up and read the situation as being compromised. 

“Stupid,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head out of staring and turning back over to grab another rag. 

“So it _is_ you,” she heard a hushed, gravelly mumble that caused her to jump.

“Csitt, csitt, csitt,” she soothed, placing a guiding hand on his stomach to keep him lying still. “You shouldn’t talk. You shouldn’t be moving at all. Just rest.”

Roderich seemed almost inebriated, with the way he returned to consciousness. Of course, it wouldn’t stop him from trying to orient himself again, the stubborn thing. “I’m alive?”

“It would seem so,” the Hungarian responded with a harshness that made him wonder momentarily what her obvious irritation could mean.

“But... why?” he croaked it out.

“How should I know why?” Erzsébet answered, trying to signal him to silence with her tone. “The point is you are. Now could you please try to-“

“No, why- ach!” Roderich interrupted but quickly acquiesced to the pain in his side from attempting to wave his hand. After giving into a sharp inhale through gritted teeth, he softened into a brief wince. “Why am I not dispatched?”

Erzsébet nearly felt her militant composure drop upon hearing that helpless cry, but caught herself as quickly as he regained control of it, taking note to observe the side he caved in over. “Because you didn’t die? I don’t know,” the Hungarian chastised him again before thinking to change her tone. Having Roderich going into shock would not be doing either of them any favors. “Just.. just try to relax. Okay? Deep breaths. Slow and easy. That’s it. Like that. You’re going to be fine.”

“I mean,” the Austrian mustered onward, having regained a sense of composure and resting down once again. “Why have _you_ not... you know?”

“No offense, Sir,” the Hungarian spoke bluntly, with that sassy, militant humor of hers, “but I’m not fond of the idea of riding back to Vienna in a close carriage with the company of a fresh corpse.”

Though there was little he could do and express lying there and certainly no way he’d risk crouching again over a reflexive pearlclutch, a noise escaped him that sounded something like repulsion compared to the hitched breaths of simple pain. “Herrgott.”

Trying to silence a chuckle over the absurdity of her superior being clearly more tortured by the ghastly idea of having a lady (if he even considered her one) travel with a corpse compared to his own pain, Erzsébet decided it was as good a tactic as any.

“Have you ever had to share a carriage with a fresh corpse before?” she teased. “It’s not pretty. They defecate, you know. They do. Do you want me sitting in a carriage for days with all of your stench?”

Her good-humored tactic to get under his skin (and cleverly unbuttoning his coat) did not go unnoticed, and Roderich quietly cursed himself for being so predictable. He groaned accusingly, hoping to signify he were already in enough agony. “This is a ploy to keep me from dying.”

“Well, I hope that means the embarrassment is working. I’d rather you be here,” Erzsébet allowed herself the chuckle - anything to temper her nerves - while she tried to delicately slip him out of the coat. To her relief, he didn’t put up much of a protest. In fact, he even attempted to assist in maneuvering his limbs out of the sleeves and untuck his shirt to allow her the space to work, even if that clearly meant biting his bottom lip through the pain and having to taste the iron in his blood.

Not having the boldness to turn his head and look her way, the young master tried to concentrate on the window across from him. It was a matter of time before he’d start to brood, so she wasn’t surprised he’d break the silence.

“Why should I not be better off dead?” he grumbled, still managing to look pensive beyond his injuries. “What good am I to anyone like this?”

“It makes you really have to think before talking,” Erzsébet peered up from her work and sassed him once again; however, she was not expecting him to give a short chuckle back or to see the corner of his mouth curve up in her peripheral vision. Not only had it made her aware laughter was not the best thing to encourage while she tended to the gash in his side, but it made her aware of his soft stomach’s contraction, its subtle outlines, and the flush feeling in her cheeks upon noticing it that she desperately tried to ignore.

“I’ll need you to hold still,” she reminded him gently.

There was an uptick in his voice that was just noticeable enough to understand as hesitance. “Why?”

“Because you need sutures and it’s going to hurt. I can’t have you flinching, if we’re going to do this right.”

She was unsure if he was actually trying to be a brat or just returning her sass. “I wouldn’t _need_ them, if you’d just let me _die_.”

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” She quipped right back. It was just sharp enough to hush any others. He certainly was grappling with quite the embarrassing situation - one of his servants tending to his injuries in such a fashion. Antonio would at least have favored him with a quick death to shake off the next day, rather than leave his body alone and grasping for life in some horrid field.

At least, that’s how he remembered their team ups. 

When he was around...

Those few times he was actually around...

There weren’t very many instances to make a good judgement call on, the more Roderich reflected on it.

But this was very different. All of this touching. All of this physical exposure. To be seen, by a _subordinate_ , of all things, and a _lady_ , of all other things, in such a fashion - such a vulnerable, exposed fashion. This in and of itself was enough of an embarrassment. 

And, Lord, all of this touching?!

This... rather tender touching? 

No, no it was vulgar. It was crass. It was...

Strangely consoling, considering the source.

Roderich was not generally one to think of Erzsébet as being gentle, or really one to entertain too sweet of a nurturing disposition in times like this. It was quite the puzzle, trying to make sense of her headstrong focus on taking this hard road. The Austrian found his gaze fixated down at her, handling his injuries with deft precision and contact he was surprised didn’t tickle his skin. Maybe further observation could garner him some insight on her reasoning, so he’d be spared some humiliation in asking.

Unfortunately, that one eye he could fixate on her appeared to be critical on her end. At least, that was her best guest. The Austrian could be hard to read sometimes with that serious, stoic expression, and all of the bruising and swelling made his expressions even less legible. 

“This isn’t... _so_ bad,” the servant continued, assuaging any worries inside the carriage. “You really took a beating out there, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve seen soldiers in worse condition and they bounce back fine. You will, too.”

Nothing. Not a thing could be taken from that, beyond her nonsensical insistence to continue this silly exercise. He’d face the additional humiliation of inquiring over it - she was already probably expecting him to pass and (heaven forbid) defecate in her presence anyway. What else had he to lose?

“You know you don’t have to do this,” he reminded her. It occurred to him that maybe this was an automatic assumption, that he would otherwise have told her to do this. This was the first time she’d been in the carriage of shame with him. At least, in the instance where he were alive. It had to be. He hoped it was. The implications otherwise would make him physically ill on top of everything.

“You know _you_ don’t have to _talk_ to me while I do this,” she met his remark with the quick wit to save his constitution from following that disturbing, introspective path.

“You know,” Erzsébet observed, upon noticing Roderich’s reservation to the aches and stings of being stitched up, “for someone so quick to be in favor of dying when you don’t have to, you have a lot more pain tolerance than I thought you would. Coming down from your _ivory tower_ and all that. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

And at this point, she’d brought him back into that main introspective pathway of sheer discomfort; however, her words were... kind. Outside of some of that dismissiveness, anyway. But it was a different sensation, hearing her say, albeit a little begrudgingly, that he’d actually done something that impressed her. The sentiment seemed to dull some of his aches, but Lord knows he wouldn’t admit to that and fish for compliments. Why openly admit how pathetic he felt just to disingenuously garner a few nice words? Would they even have the same effect, if they were prompted?

Lifting his brow in a blasé manner and tilting his head to the side, he continued on, hoping to see what other unprompted sentiments risked coming out by playing it cool. “Once you’ve been beaten so many times, it’s easy to get used to.”

The composure was lost in a moment when Roderich reached for the cushion above him with his other hand, just to have something to squeeze, groaning and straining his voice at the fresh sting of the alcohol. “The sterilizer, however, is still new.”

“I’ll try to give you more warning before the next time I use it,” the servant bargained, pausing for a moment to allow the young master to adjust to the sting. 

After a moment, the Austrian gave her the go-ahead to continue. “Well, go on,” he huffed. “The sooner it’s done with, the better.”

Completely unprompted, Erzsébet hummed through a smile before laughing through her nose. That little, irritated edge to his voice was kind of cute, given the context - it was obvious he was nervous to bare that sting again and putting on some kind of brave face. “You really are handling this better than I thought you would. You should know that.”

Again, she had left him at pause. Especially with that smile. Lord knows if he’d ever prompted that from her before, but it was a pleasant feeling to dwell on the concept of it happening - the sight was questionable past the swelling. She really had such a darling smile, finely placed on such a charming face, with such eyes that were... staring back at him, as if she were being watched. _Good Lord, why hadn’t he thought to say anything?!_

He had to respond with some kind of thought!

Any kind of thought!

“What makes you say so?”

Why did he go with that one? Why was he content to let her see his doubt? What would she do with that now?

The Hungarian’s response was simple, paired with a casual shrug. “I thought maybe it’d be a small comfort to hear someone tell you that you might actually be tougher than you look, and that you’re not as disposable as you might think.”

The thought got him to keep quiet for a good, long while. That was all Erzsébet noticed while making more progress on that gash by his rib. With her attention focused on his side and her gaze cast down, she couldn’t notice Roderich peering down at her again, in a very dreamy state.

The Hungarian didn’t think much of it as she continued on with her small talk, snapping him out of attempting to see her. “I don’t know. _I’d_ want to hear that in your boots. It helps when you have something to justify some of the pain.”

“I still lost,” he sulked.

“You gave it everything you had, didn’t you? And more, if I recall that Spartan training program Teresa had you go through,” she added, allowing herself a teasing sentiment at the end. 

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Roderich groaned, desperately looking for a way to express his disgust. “I have to go back to doing that like this.”

”I’ll make sure you’re ready first,” Erzsébet assured him, switching to bandaging. “You are in my care, after all. If you can’t ride a horse, then you have little business back out on the battlefield just yet. And if you can barely walk yet, then you’re not ready to run laps or box or swim or whatever the hell she has you doing.”

She was maybe lying with that last statement. She’d quietly peeked into the training a couple of times, more to quietly check on his well-being than any progress. It was difficult to watch at times.

“All I want is to make music again,” Roderich lamented, much to Erzsébet’s internal delight. It had been too long since she’d heard him with an instrument, based on how much time Teresa had him devoted to training. As far as she was concerned, that was really where he belonged. 

“And you will, but you’ll need to get some rest for that, too,” Erzsébet soothed, examining the work she had done before offering him a light blanket. “I’ll have to check your bandages again in a little while, but for now you can just get comfortable. It’s a long journey back to Vienna. Who knows?” she joked, giving herself a good stretch before settling into her seat. “You may be mostly healed by the time we return.”

Allowing himself a sigh to sink into rest, he got one last look at Erzsébet and tried again to reconcile his idea of who in the world she was. “Who, indeed.”


End file.
